Porthmadog: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave the engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Porthmadog. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your engine — but many newer diesels seen around Porthmadog and Morfa Bychan carry a second fluid too. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the gas to fresh them, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Many of cars share a single flap for the two, whereas others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at every filling station call-out, week in, week out. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less frequently. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Porthmadog
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a drive off High Street before work, or in the car park outside The Australia heading home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode follows.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — but a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's a second factor: a new vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. It takes a few seconds, whether in Garth or right in the heart of Porthmadog.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Minffordd or a forecourt around Porthmadog.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside the nearest station? Ask the person who drove the car last before you set off, rather than once the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Gwynedd that is.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, engine off, and never rushed by Snowdon Street on the verge.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — once you've found your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, and check again — confirm the diesel cap stayed closed the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Step five is out.
Porthmadog: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your engine remains unstarted. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base instead of mixing — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Shell, the Tesco or somewhere else. At home in Porthmadog? Then the vehicle remains where it is.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the Moreton Spur, over 50 miles from Porthmadog, that means the next exit. A short hop across Porthmadog is a smaller job than a run towards Bangor, under 25 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
Porthmadog: what happens when our engineers get there
Anywhere the car came to rest, whether by the local primary school, near The Original Factory Shop or at home, our van comes to it. The answers determine the work and the quote, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. The price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is emptied and your system cleaned thoroughly. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. Testing comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the fuel filter is flushed or changed as needed. Before we leave, we start the car and check that it is running correctly.
If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Porthmadog
Porthmadog is a coastal town in northwest Wales, situated near the mouth of the Glaslyn River and the Snowdonia National Park. Porthmadog has a mix of terraced housing and other buildings, reflecting its history as a major slate exporting port. Porthmadog is close to several nearby villages, including Garth, Borth-y-Gest, and Tremadog, and is about 20 miles from the city of Bangor. Porthmadog sits at a low elevation of around 9 metres above sea level, looking out over Cardigan Bay.
AdBlue drains around Porthmadog, and Gwynedd beyond
Throughout LL postcodes, our teams covering Porthmadog — a coastal town — work the nearby locations too, Tremadog and Borth-y-Gest included. A postcode starting LL49 9 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle doesn't need to shift. We drain it where it is — a side street close to Capel Salem, a lay-by on the way to Parc Porthmadoc, a drive. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of S. Ioan Newydd.
For Porthmadog motorists, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Keep the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across Gwynedd.